Trekked

In the Philippines, my best friends were my cousins. Whilst in the outskirts of Quezon City, we imagined the red savannah as planet Mars, and we trekked through it. In rural Ibaan, we would be amongst piggeries and woven mats full of drying "kamias" under the heat of the tropical sun.

We trekked through the dense jungle for hours, but finally reached our destination.

It's a grey cloudy morning this summer day of the 22nd of June of 2025. Before dawn, I had a snack of two tofu fish cuttlefish corn potato tangerine pork rolls with strawberries. Around 8, I was at Starbucks café, there to drink Passion Tango iced tea, which contained hibiscus, lemongrass, cinnamon, passion fruit, pineapple, and so forth. I waited for my religious Baptist Filipino friend, Greg, who was there usually on Sundays at that time, but he didn't show up. Then, I walked to Tim Hortons café to drink an iced coffee with oat milk and eat a sausage English muffin. There were families. There were several ex-Soviet bachelors who spoke Russian. Before 10, I trekked towards the Roman Catholic church at St. Albans Road. I admired the bamboo grove and the Emerald Tree on the way. At the church, there were already some worshippers in the nave: many Filipinos, and some Hispanics and Cantonese. The Filipina nun in her habit was talking to some Filipinas in the lobby area. They were admiring someone's blue skirt, which cost 80 dollars. Today, this morning, many blue hydrangeas adorned the front of the nave, inside. (There is interest in Interlingua.) Yesterday and today counted as my 50th and 51st visits to that church, the "Clam Temple" as I call it because of its architecture. Some people wore beige, an interest in Chabacano. When I walk outside, I usually talk to rabbits in Lojban: "coico'o ractu" (Hello-bye rabbits!). I'm often like Dr. Dolittle.